Apr 19 2009

The Ashton Kutcher Lesson

April 19, 2009 – 7:10 pm

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Kami Huyse co-created this post’s thesis.

Is the Ashton Kutcher/Orpha Winfrey rush to dominate Twitter really a good or bad thing as so many are want to discuss? Is it the ultimate demonstration of the end of Twitter or America’s bad taste? Or is it none of the above? Or any of these topics relevant for an opt-in service, where individuals can chose who graces/pollutes their Twitter stream. The real lesson for communicators is not any of these grand media topics: Instead, it’s about fame.

Suddenly those who are clamoring to reach the pinnacle of bizarre and vain personal value — 1K, 5k, 10k or 25k followers — have been force fed an epiphany: Real fame is not created from a manicured and cultivated personal brand on Twitter. Real fame creates hundreds of thousands, even millions of “followers” in a matter of weeks. The stars have arrived and the nano-famous suddenly find themselves in the midst of an identity crisis. Isn’t it ironic that this drama occurred the week after Me 2.0 launched?

Those that decry the loss of Twitter’s innocence have a very clear option. Stop crying about the presence of real stars in social media, and start looking at what you are doing online.

On the content side, it’s a two-way medium. There are no victims from the Ashton Kutcher Twitterathon. Everyone has an option with such events. Unsubscribe. Or join the Kutcher party. Your community is as valuable or vapid as the people you follow and participate with in conversations.

More importantly from a communicators standpoint, this can be a great moment. We can finally look at this media and say, “What’s more important?” That we become as famous, even more famous than our clients and organizations who we represent? Somehow I don’t think Kutcher’s publicist has what it takes.

Or should we stop this nonsense and return to basic counselor values? It used to be that promoting clients came first, that the famous in our business we’re often the owners of businesses, true thought leaders and winners of award-worthy campaigns. Moving back to basics… Isn’t it more important that we understand the medium, how to communicate through it, and guide our organizations through the transition to two-way media and the phenomenal dynamic nature of this toolset? And if we are successful, naturally become recognized by our peers rather than seizing fame?

A Word to the Nano-Famous

A final word for the crushed nano-famous: Self esteem is created by doing esteemable things. Thus winning becomes a very subjective, personal valuation. Famous people are often winners caught in the act of doing great things (Denis Waitley, Psychology of Winning). That is to say they achieve notoriety by doing noteworthy things. Companies and people that are featured in the media have often done something unusual, hopefully for the betterment of our society.

Some keep their fame, some lose it. Some maintain it by continuing to do great things, others do it by manufacturing stunts that are deemed attention worthy by mass and now social media. Some just move on and go back to achieving their next goal.

Many times our society deems what is worthy of notoriety by pop standards. But tell me a mother (or father) who successfully raises her children, goes to graduate school and maintains a full-time job is not successful, or a winner. So what’s more important: Nano-fame with thousands of followers or achieving noteworthy, meaningful things in life, quietly, yet confidently.

P.S. If you hate me for this post, join my Facebook antifan page and write something nasty on the wall.

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Geoff Livingston | Posted in PR Industry Trends | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (12)
Apr 17 2009

Some Opportunities to Catch Me on the Road

April 17, 2009 – 12:16 am

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It seems like I am on the road a lot more, and doing more private speaking engagements these days (original image taken in the Blue Ridge last October). But I will be appearing at two San Francisco conferences and one Chicago event over the next two weeks. Here are the details:

1) NTC: Looks like I have to leave SF early and won’t appear on Tuesday, April 28th’s Rational Pursuit of Change panel, but I will still be giving a blogging workshop Sunday afternoon (the 26th). Come on by if you are already registered for NTC, which is sold out.

2) On Monday, the 27th in SF, I will be at the first day of SNCR’s NewComm Forum one of my favorite social media conferences out there… Last year’s was very enjoyable as the content is vastly superior, only rivaled by Gnomedex. I am honored to appear not once, but twice. First, I will be facilitating the opening Keynote Conversation with Charles Best, Founder, DonorsChoose.org. Later that morning, Shashi Bellamkonda and I will discuss our SNCR Commendation of Excellence and IABC Gold Quill award winning social media program for Network Solutions.

If you are in SF, and have not registered for NewComm Forum, do so. It’s the most bang for your buck of any Internet communications conference out there. I’ll be there all day, so looking forward to catching up.

3) I’m looking forward to SOBCON (May 1-3), the production of blogger genius Liz Strauss. This is my first SOBCON, but I’ve heard outstanding things about this serial event. And it’s in Chicago, too, my first trip back since last year’s Lollapalooza festival (heh, heh). My session on Saturday is integrating on and offline communications. This is the next frontier for communications managers, so I hope you can make it. I will also be there on Friday for networking purposes.

And if you are in DC please register for BlogPotomac. Two months out and we’ve only got 1/3 of the inventory of tickets left. We won’t be making more available.

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Geoff Livingston | Posted in Digital Marketing | Comments (0)
Apr 16 2009

Brandjacked by Seesmic

April 16, 2009 – 11:15 am

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Seesmic recently released its new Tweetdeck-esque desktop client with some fanfare, competition and even a YouTube video. Included in the promotional video is about twenty seconds plus of yours truly, or more specifically, my Twitter handle (kudos to Linda Bustos for spotting this).

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The video made me laugh and reminded me of a post I wrote on brandjacking. Brandjacking is when people/entties lift brands and affiliate with them using social media very easily, and often without their permission.

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Don’t get me wrong, in this particular instance I don’t care, and probably benefitted from it. But the incident does bring up several questions:

  • Given the length of use, should I have been asked if I would allow my image to be used in this context, marketing a new application for Loic Le Meuer’s Seesmic.
  • Should David Alston have been asked since he owns the rights to the photograph of me used in the avatar?
  • Should Twitter have been involved since technically the content was published on its social network? From its terms of service, technically I own the copyright…

    • Again, I really don’t care about this particular incident. But it does highlight how brandjacking — a very common occurrence in social media — could get litigious quickly if companies aren’t careful.

     
    AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Geoff Livingston | Posted in Digital Marketing | Tagged , , , , | Comments (9)

    Buzz Meter: Diigo

    April 16, 2009 – 9:20 am

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    Diigo, where information, knowledge and community come together, is essentially two services in one. Its primary function is being a social bookmarking service. However, because people are relatively definable by what they read and bookmark, Diigo also integrated a social networking platform that allows users to find and interact with others with similar interests.

    As a social bookmarking service it offers many features that other popular bookmarking services provide, such as easy tagging from the toolbar, recommended tags, and search capabilities. But Diigo goes further, allowing users to highlight and comment directly on web pages, and it allows users to organize tagged features into an interactive list. This list is then played as a slideshow with one mouse click.

    Diigo makes social bookmarking truly Web 2.0 with social search and networking based on an individual’s tags, bookmarks and annotations. Diigo will also recommend bookmarks and other Diigo users that share similar interests. Additionally, users can see what content their friends have bookmarked and commented on, and Diigo even pulls out the bookmarks and groups for which you share a common interest.

    Buzz Meter Ranking: 3 out of 4 Buzz Bees

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    Positive: The interactive slideshow is a useful feature. It allows retrieving and sharing online research, including highlights and annotations, effortlessly. After importing tags from other bookmarking sites, or starting from scratch, users can easily send and share messages and content, join groups of interest, meet and collaborate with others, participate in forums, and view current hot topics. All this – along with Diigo’s advanced search capabilities – makes finding, discussing and sharing online content a breeze. Additionally, keep your eye out for the version of Diggo, which should be hitting the Web in the next couple of weeks.

    A few of the features to look for include: A major UI change, more intuitive design, improved search and cache feature, the ability to upload screenshots for your bookmarks, and improved user interaction.

    Negative: Del.icio.us generally is the first social bookmarker people think of. As a result, Delicious organizes more tags and information. For example, a Del.icio.us search for soccer generates 65,660 bookmarks, and the same search on Diigo generates 706 results. Additionally, Diigo, though it recommends similar tags, does not intuitively include them in a search. For example, a search for soccer does not intuitively include futbol unless a post is tagged both soccer and futbol.

    Conclusion: When it comes to bookmarking, Diigo clearly offers a number of useful features not found on other bookmarking services. And having the additional social aspect provides users with a great user experience and improves search. All this makes transferring your bookmarks to Diigo a smart idea. However, because much of the power of a social bookmarking site is in how much data has been bookmarked and organized, until more people convert to Diigo, it will not be the most useful bookmarking search tool available.

     
    AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Mike Nelson | Posted in Digital Marketing | Comments (3)
    Apr 15 2009

    Five Quick Tips for Enterprise Adoption

    April 15, 2009 – 11:39 am

     

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    Most organizations have great trepidation about adopting social media.  Beyond the trial projects in the communications (or marketing or PR) department, going beyond the silo and allowing widespread access to stakeholders can be an intimidating endeavor (bicycle image by laffy4k).  Some of the more common objections are:

    • How does one allow people to talk while “maintaining business continuity?”
    • When are we going to find the time?
    • How are we going to fund this?
    • Where do we begin? 
    • What is it going to do to the bottom line?
    • Why should I let people build their personal reputations on my dollar?

      • Here are some easy tasks to encourage social media adoption across the organization, while at the same time not requiring the enterprise to incur major responsibility or shift policies. Old school social media wonks will smile when they see some familiar tasks on the list.

    1) Communicate using social networks.  In reality, social media represents a new form of communication. For example email became an easier way to send a letter or fax.  Encourage employees to communicate with the external world (such as members of the media or sales prospects), not via email, but through social networks like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.  This forces them online, and at the same time, simply replaces a task that’s already being done with another tool, and one that’s free…

    2) Set up an internal blog or wiki to share links. You know that guy, the one who emails links to everyone?  Well, it’s likely that you have some sort of enterprise software or can set up a free account on WetPaint or Ning that will allow employees to log into a closed network and share links. So set it up, and ask employees to share resources on the internal social wiki, blog or network instead of email everyone.  It will actually increase productivity for those not clicking through, and provide a means of discussion for those who do, and a historical record/bookmark for the link.

    3) Use an internal blog for project management.  If you  have a far flung team across several offices use a private/internal blog to provide updates on progress and solicit feedback.  Again, this is another activity that’s usually done via email and Word, so you are not requiring new work, just changing the way it is delivered. You can also use a tool like Basecamp for filesharing.

    4) Think people are tweeting or Facebooking during work?  Some enterprises get in a real tizzy about this.  But maybe instead of policing this, the right approach is to encourage microblogging across the organization with Yammer! Some companies let teams use IM or email to electronically chatter, too.  Again, this is another way to harness that activity and build an enterprise wide conversation.

    5) Recruit through social media.  Yes, it’s a time when layoffs are predominant.  At the same time, companies still have to replace critical positions.  LinkedIn has always been a primary recruiting tool. Other networks like Facebook can work, too. And if social media is a skill set a company needs to embrace, what better way to do that then hire people already using the tools?

    What would you add to the list?

     
    AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Geoff Livingston | Posted in Digital Marketing | Comments (15)
    Apr 14 2009

    Goodness Gracious, Great Blogs of Fire!

    April 14, 2009 – 10:02 am

    Toby Bloomberg of Social Media Marketing GPS is writing the first business book using Twitter as the platform and distribution channel. The book is about social media marketing and each chapter includes interviews with people who are active in the topic. Join the conversation and provide insights for Toby’s book using #smgps.

    Mayra Ruiz shares a recent survey conducted by the Economic Intelligence Unit (EIU) discussing the role of social networks to help innovation amongst companies. According to the survey, “54% of global executives from 19 different industries agree that marketing on social networks will be a key ingredient in an organization’s ability to survive and thrive on turbulent times.” Check out the rest of survey results on MayraRuiz.com.

    Need help finding a job? Find a job through social media. Sandra Fathi of tech affect shares six ways to help you stand out in a “sea of experienced [and] qualified applications.” Some of her tips include making yourself “findable,” joining social networks and actively listening for job openings through Google Alerts and RSS Feeds. What are some of your tips?

    Brian Solis of PR 2.0 shares results from Forrester’s latest research survey “that links business buyers and their process of researching solutions to Social Media.” Out of 1,200 technology buyers from U.S., Canada, France, Germany and the U.K, social media isn’t only limited to consumers or B2C. One interesting results showed out of the respondents only 5% are nonparticipants of Social Media. Read more at PR 2.0.

    When should you or should you not use social media? Chris Crum shares “a bunch of resources to help you determine” when to use social media. Chris even shares an article from Liana Evans discussing a study Gartner stating that by next year, “60% of Fortune 1000 companies will be involved with some form of online community that’s used for customer relationships” and only half will succeed. Read more about how to measure social media’s effectiveness from Chris as well as Liana’s tips at WebProNews.

     
    AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Marinel Mones | Posted in Digital Marketing | Comments (4)
    Apr 13 2009

    Thoughts on Measurement

    April 13, 2009 – 9:53 am

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    Our final post for Georgetown’s Social Media for Social Good class is on measurement.  I like what K.D. Paine (our guest lecturer) wrote last week on the topic, that measurement allows you to model the future (image: feed store scale by whiskeytango). 

    Measurement has always been positioned as a benchmarking tool to prove results. And in social media right now that’s important because folks seem to be struggling to demonstrate results.  Yet in the midst of a campaign, measurement can show you what’s working, what’s not, and how the effort will play out.  This gives cause communicators the opportunity to change course midstream — if necessary — to affect a different result.  So K.D.’s point is prescient for the communications strategist: Good generalship demands that you do more than just report results.

    Much of the dialogue around measurement deals with what to measure. People always want to affix a hard number on something like page views or number of impressions.  And that’s a good start, but does it tell you anything substantive? Good measurement involves a quality benchmark as well as quantity.

    In reality, if someone has architected a strong strategy with a desired outcome then the measurement benchmark should be fairly easy to determine.  So instead of impressions, a social cause may want to change perceptions of green cars with a more favorable impression of hydrogen fueled cars versus fuel cells.  Would you just measure hydrogen fuel posts? Or would you measure posts that mentioned both technologies as well as tonality?  You would also want to see tonality at the start as well as throughout the campaign to determine progress, course corrections and future direction.

    There are so many things a non-profit can measure:

    • Donations resulting from social media relationships
    • Number of attendees who decided to attend an event and engage beyond the socnet/blog
    • Increased volunteer base
    • The development of self identified community members who serve as an activism core
    • Political action as a result of campaign
    • Changed societal behavior (lower carbon emissions, safer school zones, reduction in speeding incidents, etc.)
    • Number of people who have volunteered for a deeper interaction with the organization (via email, volunteering or some other activity)
    • Heightened awareness of the organization (simply put, branding) as a thought leader in space
    • Increased conversations on a matter (Earth Hour, for example)
      The list can go on ad infinitum.
      There are many, many tools you can use for measurement.  Free ones like Google Analytics to paid ones like Radian6 offer a variety of different quantitative to qualitative factors. But don’t let numbers drive the measurement.  It’s not enough to site page views, unique visitors, or even simply positive or negative posts.  Analysis of the numbers in context with the original goals should be provided.
      Social media measurement is really not that hard.  What is hard is having the discipline to incorporate measurement from the beginning, and then to follow through on using it.  What are your thoughts on measurement?
     
    AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Geoff Livingston | Posted in Digital Marketing | Comments (11)
    Apr 12 2009

    Brutal Truths About Cause Marketing

    April 12, 2009 – 1:03 pm

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    I’ve watched and listened to the growing debate social media has reinvigorated about the term “cause marketing.” In particular, the term “social media for social good” has been called into question. At the heart of the matter as raised by Beth Kanter is how far companies can go before they demean the nonprofit brand in their efforts to appear (or actually become) “responsible.”

    The social media aspect of this debate is only relevant in that it makes partnering and co-branding as easy as a click or retweet. What is important is the increase ease of co-opting a brand into somewhate questionable activity, such as the recent Tide T Shirt campaign to brand Tide, oops, I meant to benefit charity :)

    The term cause marketing is often blurred by nonprofits in an effort to keep their perceived integrity. Some draw the line at the point where they receive cash, others at services. Other say the line begins as soon as the wolf is the hen house.

    I subscribe to the wolf theory. As someone who has extensive experience in both corporate and nonprofit marketing on the agency side, and as someone who got their start writing journals for nonprofit trade associations, let me be frank: Companies rarely lend their brand or resources to a nonprofit unless they gain something from it.

    That’s true whether its karmic do good efforts — the heart of what companies should be doing to be perceived social responsible — to flat out branding. Some companies go so far as to charge their customers and serve as a middleperson between from the consumer to the cause. Whether or not cash exchanges hands is irrelevant. Altruism is a very rare thing in corporate cause marketing.

    Nonprofits who say balk at this remind me of a someone who goes on a date then says it wasn’t a date because a kiss wasn’t exchanged. OK, then… Denial is not a river in Egypt.

    The nonprofit sector organization that bemoans the demeaning nature of cause marketing and, perhaps its affect on their own brand, needs to look at its choices. Companies will be companies. Some are good, some are not. For every PNC Bank, there’s an AIG. Some understand proper cause marketing and social responsibility, some do not.

    The nonprofit sector should take responsibility for who it chooses to partner with and why (hat tip: Allison Fine, lecture, Georgetown University on March 31, 2009). The stresses of fundraising and marshaling resources — even in an economy like this one — do not justify shunning off responsibility for cause marketing sliminess and failures. Nonprofit organizations that don’t organize intelligent programs that manage their brands as well as attract donors risk losing face.

    Using another metaphor, if one has a business partner whose behavior is less than appealing, dishonest, fails to fulfill obligations, or even competes in breach of legal contracts etc., one cannot simply blame them. Instead one must ask themselves why they chose company/person X as a business partner. Realize the other party’s behavior can serve as a mirror into one’s own business practices, whether similar in nature, or naive or inexperienced. There’s a lesson to be learned.

    My point: The cause marketing questions of late have as much to do with the causes as the companies. It takes two to tango, and acknowledging that will only hasten better practices.

     
    AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Geoff Livingston | Posted in Digital Marketing | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (13)
    Apr 10 2009

    There Is No Social Media Department

    April 10, 2009 – 8:01 am

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    When a new competency is embraced by a larger entity, it is the nature of a corporate organization to turn that group into a department. In fact, most PR and advertising agencies actively seek to build or acquire a social media department to meet the growing demand for conversational services (Silo image by eirikref).

    The siloization of social media within communications departments and their agencies represents a strategic error.

    Integration is the key. And I’ve said this before when I was a stand-alone social media firm.

    Every marketing department, every communications function, each practice area, and all teams should have this capability.  And social media needs to stop being looked at as a new profession. Instead these tools should be regarded as something that just about any worker can use in their tasks. By nature there will be some folks who are better at it than others, and they will evolve as specialists (remember the investor relations and analyst relations specialist, the copywriter in the ad agency?). 

    The big issue we have to address as an industry – and CRT/tanaka as a subset – is cultural.  Dishing to the social media consultant an industrial revolution mentality.  This reflects corporate America’s legacy, and smart companies are evolving to become information age companies. Social media, the enablement of two-way conversations, should be something that companies seek to adopt across the line as part of this larger global trend.

    The above is an abridged version of a post originally published on the CRT/tanaka blog. To read the next section of the post, “Stakeholders Don’t Distinguish Between,” visit the full post.

     
    AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Geoff Livingston | Posted in Digital Marketing | Tagged , , , | Comments (29)
    Apr 9 2009

    Livingston Is Gone

    April 9, 2009 – 12:01 am

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    We are announcing the acquisition of Livingston Communications this morning by CRT/tanaka (original tight race image by Jani Kajala).  The deal closed on Tuesday, March 31. As part of the acquisition, we will cease to trade as Livingston Communications, and become the Washington, DC office for CRT/tanaka.

    Personally, I am thrilled by this move. As I mentioned in a prior post, social media adoption is in full swing now. The time is coming when this media form will  no longer be special and become fully integrated into the larger communications mix.  I’d rather not wait three years for it to happen. You can see CRT/tanaka CEO Mark Raper’s views in his blog post.

    CRT/tanaka is an outstanding firm with a strong reputation in the PR and advertising space. And we have developed a reputation for strong, results-oriented social media programs.  The acquisition brings us back into the larger communications fold, and together we intend to make CRT/tanaka one of the early firms to integrate social media across the front line.

    To start our efforts together on the right foot and continue the social media ethos we’ve established, we published a white paper on the Cultural Challenge to Integration. It is based on a recent series of Buzz Bin posts. Enterprises seeking to adapt social media can use this white paper to help address one of the primary barriers to success.

    Here is some third party analysis from Beth Harte and Kami Huyse.

    Five Lessons Learned

    This marks the end of a three-year entrepreneurial endeavor for me, from the basement to award-winning author, through boom and recession to a successful conclusion.  There are some things I’ve learned along the way, which I’d like to share:

    1) Your personal life means more: Being an entrepreneur requires 60-100 hours of your week.   And you and your family suffer for it.

    3374841087_14b819c538 An executive’s life isn’t much easier, but there’s less responsibility and weight on your shoulders.  I value a renewed relationship with my wife much more than being “the man,” and as a result look forward to being more present for her.  I wish I knew this three years ago, but the resulting lessons have created a better husband.  To my wife, Caitlin (pictured above), I love you.

    2) Personal branding and companies don’t mix well: One of the biggest challenges I’ve had was the short-sighted mistake of putting my name on the door.  The resulting scaling problems were always a point of contention, and we actually seriously considered rebranding as Verv Communications last spring. We didn’t because of the timely equity behind “Geoff Livingston” and Now Is Gone.

    This experience is still one of the primary reasons why I fight personal branding tooth and nail. I cannot tell you how thrilled I am to work under a banner without my name on it.  It will be good to become a worker amongst workers in name now as well as spirit. And if I ever start a company again it won’t be named Livingston. Team social media, heck, just team period. That’s the way of companies.

    3) Being an employer will make me a better employee: Oh, now I get where my bosses came from. And I think I owe a few of them amends. :) Amazing how it feels to have the shoe on the other foot. Thanks to my prior employers for the experience and the lessons learned.  Even if it took me starting this company to learn them.

    4) It’s not all that. I’m not Chris Brogan, but I’m not John Doe either. Yet, you can tell by my irreverence towards nano-fame that it doesn’t mean much to me. In fact, it can be much more of a nuisance than a benefit with issues like privacy, heckling, etc.   For me, what does mean something is benefiting society though strong actions, helping a client, showing someone a way to help grow themselves, and generally, just being kind and giving.

    Nano-fame should be a non-conditional by-product of doing the right thing as opposed to the ultimate goal.  Winning means accomplishing something.  What do you want to do? Be known or do something that impacts your world?

    5) Don’t announce a deal until it is closed. I still have the utmost respect for Maggie Fox and crew at Social Media Group.  But I think it’s safe to say that both Maggie and I wish we had gone through the paces quietly and found out our cultures did not mix on the side rather than the civil, yet public break-up we experienced.

    At the same time, there’s a second lesson from the failed acquisition with SMG.  You can fail, get up and try again. In fact, you can succeed where you have failed in the past.

    Thank You

    Over the Spring we will be rolling over our branding to CRT/tanaka. And thus this chapter is now gone.  Thank you to everyone for their support over the past few years.

     
    AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Geoff Livingston | Posted in Digital Marketing | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (89)